As a kid growing up he was ambitious and passionate. But those two traits aren’t enough to have success in life. You tend to need a bit of luck in whatever endeavor you have. He didn’t have the luck to grow big and tall for his passion for sports, for sure he had none in wits as well. No, for certain Dumog had none of those.

He always took the easy path. Cheating all throughout grade school to high school, he thought he was slick. His teachers looked the other way or ignored it out of pity, giving up on him early on. Dumog never knew of this though, until he reached college.

For the first few years he tried his hardest. He learned in his second year that his juvenile style of cheating didn’t work anymore. It was several years too late for him to get into the habit of learning the traditional way though. By the age of 24 he had managed to pass 5 subjects. Three of them were some type of Physical Education.

The sense of being left behind by his friends and peers hit him gradually every year he spent, he felt stagnant. Of course he was jealous of his old friends earning money and starting their careers. Slowly but surely, Dumog was getting desperate.

“You have a job for me?” he asked the friend of a friend.

“Chill out homie, no one’s out to get you here,” the person he barely knew put his arm around his shoulder. “And yes I do need you for something. Quick and easy. In and out. You’re done in a minute. And you get this,” he pulled out a wad of cash held together by a rubber band.

“I get all that?” Dumog’s nerves disappeared at the idea of having that in his pockets.

“Yes, of course you get all of it.”

“What do I have to do?” he asked him, determination hyping him up.

“Simple really. You hold on to this little thing,” he handed Dumog a small brown envelope. “Then you sit on a park bench, wait a while, and a guy with a newspaper in his hand should sit next to you. With your head forward, you place down the brown envelope on the bench, and he should do the same,” he demonstrated with his hands. “You then pick up the newspaper and he the envelope. Again, without a single word to each other, you leave the area.”

Dumog thought it was simple enough, nodding as he explained the plan to him. One of his weakest traits in academics was memorization.

The shady man–that he never got the name of– dropped him off a block away from the spot. He walked to the bench and sat down. Then he stood up and looked around to make sure he was at the right spot. It was near midnight and he was almost alone apart from the occasional late night jogger. Dumog stood out, he just looked like he shouldn’t be there.

Half an hour went by. The thought of leaving invaded his mind, but he didn’t want to upset the shady man and learn what he was capable of. It seemed to him like every option he had available led him to regret. But a man that wasn’t a jogger did approach his bench after a while.

The man had a cap and a facemask on, he couldn’t determine his age at first glance. He walked up to Dumog, magazine in hand. Excitement overcame Dumog, he smiled and waved at the man. But in Dumog’s mind he looked shady enough, perhaps shadier than his employer. After sitting down next to Dumog, cleared his throat, and leaned into him.

“You buyin’ kid?” His voice was extremely deep and hoarse, reminding Dumog of a cartoon smoker.

“Huh?” He smiled at the man in confusion. And in that confusion he offered the brown envelope to him.

“What?” The man got caught off guard as well to the point of raising his voice a few octaves. He accepted it and Dumog grabbed the magazine. “Wait, what are you doing?” the man said in a normal voice.

With a wink, he waved goodbye to the man. An aura of coolness and pep was in his step, he walked away from the exchange. After a few steps the man checked the contents of the envelope. He confirmed it when Dumog took his fifth step. In a swift maneuver he jumped up and pulled his gun out.

“Put your hands up slowly! No sudden movements, or you will get shot,” the man slowly approached him from behind. “I got one, north of the park. No idea if he got friends with him,” he spoke into the collar of his jacket.

“What’s happening?” his question drowned by the wail of the police sirens.

“Ain’t it obvious dumbass?” He checked Dumog’s person for a weapon, he found nothing but his phone. “Ran out of luck huh? We finally caught you. Who knew a nitwit like you can be so hard to catch.”

“Huh?! This is my first time! I’m uh, innocent!” he rambled on and on. Dumog was panicking, he didn’t think he’d get caught in his first job.

This concludes Dumog’s criminal career, which took a day. After they cuffed him they brought him to one of the police cars. A small crowd formed around them, curious to know what happened. Prior to getting in the car he saw an old man with a newspaper in his hand, shaking his head. Next to him was the guy who dropped him off. He gave Dumog a nonchalant shrug as if to say “Happens to the best of us.”

He was quiet halfway through the car ride, but the officers were expecting a meltdown in any minute. His heart filled with regret he was nearing to the point of desperation.

“I’ll tell you who my employer is,” he offered to the two officers, they looked at each other with wide eyes, mouth agape. They busted out laughing, one of them slapped their knee.

“We’ve got a snitch over here!” they announce on their radios.

“Please, I can’t go to prison!” Dumog weeped. They wheezed.

“We haven’t even pressed him yet!” they wiped tears off their eyes and cackled.

During the whole ride the officers continued laughing about the arrest. Dumog figured it was past midnight as he wasn’t seeing any cars on the road. He also noticed that the cops were running red lights, blaring their sirens for a bit as they passed.

“Man, haven’t laughed like that in a while,” the one on the passenger side said. They were about to run another red.

“I know, that felt nice,” the driver said. He sirened for half a second before he reached the crossroads. Then he looked back at Dumog meeting his dejected eyes. “You do know what snitches get ri-,” he was cut off by a bright light and massive horns roaring.

The last thing Dumog saw was the driver’s face disfigured by fear, regret, and shame. He imagined that was what his face looked like when they arrested him. It was too fast for his brain to comprehend what happened to them. In the few moments of awareness, he managed to get a glimpse of the other officer. Tears in his eyes and a smile on his face, the white headlights flood his features away.

Dumog really thought that a life in prison was his future, dying by car crash didn’t seem as bad though. The impact came, surges of pain radiated throughout his body. All of his senses were drowned in all sorts of stimuli. From a blinding white light and a high pitched ringing, he didn’t understand what was happening to him.

In the next instance he was lying down on his back, naked. Eyes wide open, he only moved his eyeballs. Surveying what he can, he could tell he was in a forest. He can feel the grass and foliage prickling his back. For a few moments he tried looking for the blinding light or the noise, but nothing. A bird could be heard chirping around him though.

Dumog just laid down there for a while, nothing but confusion flooded his entire body. At least he was still alive, he thought. He enjoyed the sudden peace after all that happened to him that night. But the sun was awake with him at the present.

The bird continued its chirping. Dumog thought it sounded weird. Then he realized that the flapping of its wings weren’t matching the noise it was making with its mouth. It was too deep and he felt it vibrate a bit on the ground.

He sat up annoyed as the ground pricked and tickled his nether regions. With a click of his tongue he finally looked around him. It wasn’t a bird.

It was blue and stood on two legs, built similar to a human. Scales ran along its face. Tufts of hair popped out on certain parts of its body. But unlike Dumog, it had the decency to have rags covering its important bits.

The blue creature shut its mouth when their eyes met. Dumog slowly stood up with his hands up, exposing his palms to it. The creature stood up to Dumog’s waist, around 3 feet. He examined it again. Its eyes were pitch black, but he could observe a sense of individuality and intelligence from it. It tilted its head, doing the same as him in its own mind. They stood there for what seemed like an eternity for Dumog.

Being naked in nature felt freeing for him. Though, he was about to go to prison a few minutes ago. Anything felt like the idea of freedom to him. Dumog started to feel comfortable.

The two circled around one another. He took it as a sign that the creature was warming up to him. Growing up he had a hard time making friends in school. So he spent a lot of his free time practicing his smile in front of a mirror for several hours. From a television program, he had heard in passing that the easiest way to make friends was with a nice smile. Dumog gave it his all, showcasing his years of hard work.

Dumog bared his pearl-white teeth at the creature, making sure that he had his eyebrows and cheeks raised. He coached himself through the process. Even telling himself a joke in his thoughts to make it seem authentic. The final touch was a slight tilt of the head to the side, he thought it was cute.

The blue one didn’t. It shrieked and charged at him, taking the gesture of baring one's teeth as a threat. Dumog managed to keep it at arms length, preventing the creature from taking a bite off his neck. They both fall down on the forest ground.

Dumog maneuvered his head in a way to dodge each of the creature’s attempts at chomping his neck and face. Despite it being as small as a child it was still difficult for him to handle. He slips his right foot under the creature’s torso and kicks him off his body. It tumbled a few feet away.

It was panting. After a few breaths it let out another shriek that made his skin shiver. Though it was shaped like a child, Dumog had to prioritize his safety first. He knew it wasn’t backing down after that scuffle, it was about to get serious. They ran at each other.

As they were getting closer the creature managed to pick up a stone off the ground and chuck it at Dumog. The rock hit above his left eyebrow, bursting a wound open. While he had his eyes closed from the impact it leaped into him. It gets a nice bite this time, its teeth sank into his right shoulder. He yelped in pain.

His adrenaline kicked in. Dumog pushed it off him once again, making it tumble. The creature was on all fours, its back towards Dumog. He seized the opportunity and wrapped his left forearm around its neck. His left hand was on top of the other forearm. Finally, his right hand was on the back of its head. Taking in a deep breath, he squeezed.

He felt it was taking too long, it was still thrashing around. Harder, he squeezed. Until he was seeing specks of colors. With the violence he could generate from his soul, he squeezed. A cracking sound echoed in the now silent forest, the blue one’s neck snapped.

He held his breath the entire duration, cutting off oxygen to his brain. Dumog let go of his grip and passed out. Once again, he laid out on the forest floor naked and unconscious.